


if automatic love makes sense

by octoberwithoutyou



Series: green ey'd monster [2]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Jealousy, M/M, Post-Rogue One, robots have feelings and it sUCks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-10
Updated: 2017-03-10
Packaged: 2018-10-02 09:43:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10214903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/octoberwithoutyou/pseuds/octoberwithoutyou
Summary: K-2SO was too cold. Despite the heat generated by his circuits, the metal that covered him was always chilly to the touch. When Cassian bumped into him, or whenever he had to fix him or change one of his parts, the different felt abysmal, and Kaytoo would think of how heat, as energy, was supposed to transit from a high temperature object to a lower temperature object, until they were the same. He wished that would happen, but Cassian was still too warm, and he was too cold.





	

**Author's Note:**

> hey! this is the second part of the series. It can be read as a stand alone, but i suggest you read the first one first

37.5. K-2SO didn’t believe in things such as lucky numbers, but that was the closest one to that he had. 37.5 degrees was the core temperature of Cassian Andor. After years of scanning him to make sure his homeostatic mechanism was stable, he found out that was his average temperature when Cassian was uninjured, and relatively content. It was number he had learned to associate with wellness.

Compared to the average temperature on organic beings similar to Cassian, the spy was really warm. He remembered when he was turned on for the first time since he was reprogrammed. The first thing his sensors detected was a tiny life form, warm despite the coldness of the base they were in.

As he grew up, his temperature decreased, but he was still warm. Kaytoo guessed it could be described as pleasantly so. Another life form would describe it as that, not a droid like him. He could identify and categorize his temperature, and compare the results with his data to check if it was normal. There was nothing else to it.

 

K-2SO was too cold. Despite the heat generated by his circuits, the metal that covered him was always chilly to the touch. When Cassian bumped into him, or whenever he had to fix him or change one of his parts, the different felt abysmal, and Kaytoo would think of how heat, as energy, was supposed to transit from a high temperature object to a lower temperature object, until they were the same. He wished that would happen, but Cassian was still too warm, and he was too cold.

 

Because if Kaytoo had to use a word to describe Cassian Andor, it would be warm. His database contained some poets and texts written by authors throughout the galaxy, and although he didn’t exactly enjoy them, there were words that stuck with him.

Warm-hearted was one of them. It meant kind, generous. At first, Kaytoo found the implication that good nature on someone made their hearts warm kind of ridiculous, but, as impossible as it was, it fit Cassian. His smile was warm, his eyes and his words and his touch. There wasn’t any logical explanation for his thinking, but Kaytoo, more than knowing that, he felt it. He wondered if those conflicting thoughts were because of the fact that his memory hadn’t been wiped in quite a long time.

“You can do it if you want, right?” Cassian had said when Kaytoo commented it. He was frowning slightly, as if he wasn’t fond of the idea. 

“Yes, I can.” Kaytoo agreed, and paused. “It’s not necessary.”

Cassian smiled at him, in a way he rarely did. A way he suspected was only for him. It wasn’t as if Cassian had many friends. Kaytoo recorded those smiles, with the pretext to save them in case he never saw the other smile, which wasn’t exactly an excuse. Cassian was far different from the kid he met years ago. His expression had hardened, but Kaytoo   
knew the warmth was still there.

 

Could a droid even feel things? Kaytoo knew the correct term would be ‘emulate feelings’, but he was beginning to doubt it was that simple. Perhaps he needed that memory wipe after all.

Asking Cassian was out of the question. He didn’t like to talk about those sort of things, even though he would try his hardest to help. Cassian turned cold when faced with some things he didn’t say out loud, his face turned into a mask most people couldn’t read, but Kaytoo knew him better. 

That was how Kaytoo had to resort to holovids.

It took his less than a second to go through most of the ones he could find on the surface of the Holonet. It wasn’t a big revelation, like the ones the actors and actresses on screen seemed to have, with a dramatic zoom in that appeared to pinpoint the moment everything was clear. To Kaytoo, it had always been there, in a way. Emulated or not, it had evolved until it was something his calculations could not longer explain.

He wondered if being in love would feel the same if he actually had a heart.

 

Kaytoo knew the probabilities to made it out alive were not what Cassian would call “optimistic”. He knew it from the start. But there was no one, organic or droid, to convince him to back off from a mission, and if Cassian went, Kaytoo followed. It was almost two decades too late for that.

It was something that was clear for the both of them, every time they loaded their ship and took off to a planet they’d never see again. The mission that began in Jedha was different. Cassian knew it too, but Kaytoo didn’t think it mattered to him in the end. There was only one acceptable option: to do anything in their power to win. If they died, if he died, it would be for the Rebellion. Another nameless soldier sacrificing himself for a cause whose lines were beginning to blur.

He knew the probabilities were bad, but there was no way he could have predicted how bad they could become when Cassian more or less dragged four other people they met in Jedha just as it vanished from the galaxy, and a bunch of other rebels with him and formed what would be named later Rogue One. 

The usual exasperation he felt whenever Cassian did something reckless (which was more than regular) turned into something very close to fear. As they penetrated into the Citadel Towe Base in Scarif, joined by Jyn Erso (who he still didn’t quite trust in), Kaytoo had a bad feeling. He didn’t give it much thought, as it was only logical, given how guarded the base was. 

The weather on the base was humid and hot, but Cassian was a little cold. Maybe that was what made him worry. Even after all those years fighting, Cassian was scared, his blood running cold, but he would never let something like that stop him, or even slow him down.

As Cassian and Jyn Erso looked for the plans in the data bank, K-2SO realised the truth. They were never getting out of there alive. The probabilities were more than limited, they were bordering nullity. He couldn’t hold them back for much longer. There was only one action that would, hopefully, give them more time.

One of the last two things he did that day (the last two things he thought he would ever do) was to indulge himself with a simulation. Cassian, injured but alive, flying away of the base. The other members of the team surrounding him. The plans were sent to the Alliance, and the mission was succeeded. Cassian would smile, the warmth returning to his body. He would live, and the Empire was one step closer to its fall. It was a pleasant simulation.

The last thing he did that day was to close the access to the data bank, locking Cassian inside, at least for a few minutes. More and more stormtroopers were rushing there, and the blaster he had could do nothing against them. The shots that pierced through his body, that would soon damage his circuits and leave nothing but a carcass, did not hurt at all. What did hurt was Cassian calling out his name, surely worried by the blackout caused by one of the shots. After that, there was nothing but a cold silence. 

 

Too many of those silly holodramas, Kaytoo thought. That was reason he had been too dramatic the day of the Scarif mission. He did his best to delete any reaction that caused to emulate such reaction.

It still felt weird. After he had been turned on, roughly a month after some Rogue one survivors had been rescued and taken immediately to the Medcenter, Cassian filled him in with everything that had happened while he was gone.

Erso was fine, and so was the pilot, the two ex-monks from Jedha and a few of the rebels. The message had arrived, but apparently the received had been taken hostage by Darth Vader himself. They were told it didn’t matter, that she had sent it somewhere safe. He had been staying on the medbay due to his wounds, but he could now walk better and the bacta patches had healed mostly everything.

What Cassian didn’t tell him, and what Kaytoo had to figure out himself, was something had changed, and he didn’t know if it was for the better. At first sight, it seemed fine. He had ran several scans, but Cassian seemed good physically, despite some healing wounds. But there were some things his scanner couldn’t locate.

His name was Bodhi Rook. He had lost an arm in the explosion caused by a grenade while he was on the ship. According to some sources, he had become a really good friend of Cassian while Kaytoo was still out. When he asked the man about this, he smiled and said he had helped rebuilding him. A nice guy. His face became hot and Kaytoo had worried for a second, thinking of his injuries, before he realised the reason.

 

Bodhi Rook’s body was strangely cold. Whenever he and Cassian touched, the temperature leveled. Kaytoo wanted to slap away that hand on his arm, or to get in between them before they melted and fused. 

One time he actually tried to throw Rook off the hangar. Had he deleted all of the holodramas from his drive?

 

He saw Cassian laugh, Bodhi by his side, and it didn’t feel right to Kaytoo. Most of the times it felt something he could define as anger towards the pilot, but those times, the sadness would win ever any emotion. 

The logical part of him, the part he wished would still be the one that ruled over his actions, knew that human problems could be easily solved through simple communication. But what would he say? That his circuits were corrupted, that his coding had been in modified in some way that made him no better than a sensitive human? 

Cassian was warm, but it wasn’t good anymore. The smile on his lips, the rush of blood in his face, the quick beating of his heart, they didn’t mean the same. 

Now Kaytoo barely saw Cassian. He was sometimes with Master Imwe or Baze, most of the times with Bodhi. He used to interrupt them until Bodhi left, but he was thankful the little control he had was used to try and stop taking it out on the pilot. He looked like he was terrified of him.

No matter what he did, the story was like the ones he saw on those holodramas. Two people fall in love in tough times, which made their bond stronger. There was a happy ending and a hope for a new life, away from war. He didn’t need to run the probabilities to know that. Or maybe he didn’t want to.

But just like Cassian, he wouldn’t just let things happen as a spectator. He still messed with his schedule, sent Bodhi to the wrong directions, dragging out something inevitable, even when it didn’t give him satisfaction anymore.

He had forgotten the time where he only wished for Cassian to be warm, to be safe within the limits of the war that surrounded them. Now everything was complicated and contradictory. Kaytoo was surprised it hadn’t driven him mad.He sent Cassian to a false meeting to keep him out of the armory where surely Bodhi would meet him and thought this wouldn’t last long, that game he had made them play. He had a feeling soon someone would notice (Kaytoo had his eye on Master Imwe, from what he’d seen he was weirdly good at seeing what other couldn’t), and everything would unravel. 

Bodhi Rook was a nice person. Certainly good for Cassian. Someone with a heart so big, even Kaytoo could see it, despite his biased image of him. No matter how he tried to see it, he was being the bad guy there.

**Author's Note:**

> arguably the work that took me the longest to figure out, writing this was a challenge but I like the result


End file.
